Meri Kytö

Our team effort ”Background music cultures in Finnish urban life” is soon out from Cambridge University Press! We expect the online version to be openly available on April 30th. (UPDATE: it’s already out!)

This is a result of a four-year project with my absolutely fabulous colleagues Heikki Uimonen and Kaarina Kilpiö.

The front cover is generic for the series (music and the city) which actually suits quite well with the topic of the book.

More horn tooting in May!

Very happy to announce that our NOS-HS funded Nordic network will continue under the European Association of Social Anthropologists: https://www.easaonline.org/networks/sensory_media/

Our aim is to bring the subfields of media anthropology and sensory anthropology into sustained dialogue, facilitating an integrated theorisation of media and the sensory. For contact, mailing list, events and future publications check out the EASA site.

I was invited by Lauri Sallinen and Karita Tikka, the artistic directors of the Silence festival at Kaukonen village near Kittilä, to make and perform a soundscape piece at a small log cabin called “Villa Magia”. The festival is running on it’s 13th year, a mixture of circus, music and collaboration acts. It is a gorgeous, free spirited event under the midnight sun that lasts for one weekend every June.

During one week I recorded the surrondings of the village and then added some sonic comments to them by touching different objects and materials I found in the cabin (plus my double bass). The work ended up having the name “Sora, vire, kytö”. The name plays with ambiguities (“gravel, breeze, swidden” or also “discord, tune, my surname”), along with the festival theme of the elements. The name was coined up at the festival office which is just as well, because I would probably have named it something more boring like “Kaukonen soundscape”.

I did three performances in the space lit by beautifully by Jukka Huitila. Here are the soundscape recordings I used, listed in a handout for the audience:

Soundscape recordings of Sora, vire, kytö
– Stepping at the cabin
– Nestmaking sparrows picking between the logs at Ojanperä cottage
– A walk across the wooden Accademia bridge in Venice
– Night time crickets at Ezine, Turkey
– Cicadas singing during the day at Kowloon park, Hong Kong
– Kaukonen’s chainsaw sculptor Vesa at work
– The dogs of Rengastie with passing cars
– Brewing morning coffee at Ojanperä cottage. In the background one can hear songs performed by Eero Magga, ”Pohjolan yö” (Night in the North, comp. Godzinsky, lyrics Nuorvala) ja ”Onnen kaipuu” (Longing for happiness, comp. & lyrics Pedro de Pajaro, aka Pekka Lintula). ”Pohjolan yö” is originally from the film Salakuljettajan laulu (Smugglers song, 1952, dir. Lasse Pöysti), telling a story of rationing after the second world war and how buying of secondary commodities – like coffee – was being prevented.
– Spruces, aspen and birches sway in summer wind in front of Villa Magia
– Stepping out from the cabin

Between and during these recordings I changed shoes and stepped around the wooden cabin floor, answered to the sparrows by knocking on the window, made water drip from the ceiling through some woolen yarn onto a large metal lid that swung nicely on the floor when I crushed some dried reeds and rocks on it (piezo amplified), swung my double bass that I had filled with dried peas and hung from the ceiling (amplified as well), and finally rubbed my palms and some sawdust on a beautiful rusted circular saw blade that was hanging on the wall there (piezo amplified, this too). At the end I stepped again out from the cabin, asking the audience to follow me to the yard, to experience some acoustic Kaukonen.

Here are the programme notes in Finnish:

“Sora, vire, kytö -ääniteoksessa eri äänimaisemat koskettavat toisiaan synnyttäen äänten ja tilojen, maisemien duettoja. Äänitaiteilija Meri Kytö tuo Kaukoseen eri paikoista kokoamiaan äänimaisemaäänityksiä, jotka alkavat soida yhdessä Kaukosen äänten kanssa. Villa Magian tulipirtti laajenee äänelliseksi kokonaisuudeksi, joka sisältää monia äänellisiä polkuja. Meri Kytö on musiikin ja äänen tutkija sekä kulttuurintutkija Turun Yliopistossa. Teoksessaan Meri hyödyntää tilan omia ääniä, pienimuotoista äänentoistoteknologiaa, itserakennettuja kontaktimikrofoneja ja jo hieman ikääntynyttä Edirol 09 -kovalevytallenninta.”

The work ended up being a somewhat organic whole. It would have benefitted from a few days of more work and balancing out the different elements but I’m quite ok with it. I had the most enjoyable discussions with people who came and listened to it, these really were the best take-away from the festival. It’s lovely to hear the different connotations and physical reactions people have with this kind of quite mundane, modest and low-fi sounds when given a little allocated time. I also learned that Stihl is the go-to brand in Kaukonen chainsaw sculpting scene.

Last Summer I was lucky to be invited to work with fema group (Hanna Kahrola, Tuija Touhunen, Anna Kupari). I acted as a “conversational shoulder” in the group, discussing about soundscape, public space, feminist methodologies, situational knowledge, the night time, wolves, epidemics, things like that. I’m planning to write about what we did in more detail but in the meantime here’s a video showing one part of the working process.

This was filmed during September. Performers are Kahrola and Touhunen. Edit by yours truly.

References to the lecture:

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